Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s Airport Style Is Still the Height of Chic

“I want minimum information given with maximum politeness,” Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis once said, and I personally think she was talking about your airport style! Hey, you—yes, I am talking to you, in those hideous lavender sweatpants, with your tushie creeping out the back and that horrible pillow ring-thing looped around your neck. How can you leave the house like that?

The iconic Jackie O, who would have been 86 today and had the right idea about so many things, was herself a proponent of the most exquisite, carefully wrought airport style. “Being away from home gave me a chance to look at myself with a jaundiced eye,” she stated on one occasion, and, if she was tired or if it was just too sunny, she would cover those peepers, jaundiced or not, in chic oversized shades. If her coiffure was a mess, she would knot a Hermès kerchief just so. Windy climbing up those Air Force One stairs? She relied on a belted trench tied over her snappy trousers.

Of course you will never be Jackie. (Who could be? No one. Ever.) But you haven’t left for vacation yet! It’s not too late to chuck the shorts, toss the tee, and march through the metal detector with a semblance of style this summer.

Photo: (Clockwise from top left) Courtesy of net-a-porter.com; Courtesy of mytheresa.com; Courtesy of modaoperandi.com; Courtesy of Barneys New York; Courtesy of Sofia Capri; Courtesy of Opening Ceremony

Photo: (Clockwise from top left) Courtesy of nuji.com; Courtesy of sjphillips.com; Courtesy of net-a-porter.com; Courtesy of matchesfashion.com; Courtesy of matchesfashion.com; Courtesy of overstock.com